>>blog, notes, markings<<

Thursday, May 04, 2017

725. Modus operandi of the attentive person

A couple days ago something jumped out at me from an email. The email was from Poets & Writers website/magazine and identified stories of interest to click through and read. The thing that jumped was in the paragraph about the first story, in which Parul Sehgal, senior editor and columnist at the New York Times Book Review, was being interviewed.

Here’s what she said:

"There's something Cezanne said that I think about a lot, something like, 'I know what I am looking at, but what am I seeing?' That's what reviewing feels like to me. It's very much to 're-view,' to see again, to try to see farther and see deeper."

Sehgal was speaking there as a book reviewer, but what she said seems to me a habit for living as an attentive person, regardless of occupation: to try to see and not just look, to try to see farther, to try to see deeper.

Comments

725. Modus operandi of the attentive person

A couple days ago something jumped out at me from an email. The email was from Poets & Writers website/magazine and identified stories of interest to click through and read. The thing that jumped was in the paragraph about the first story, in which Parul Sehgal, senior editor and columnist at the New York Times Book Review, was being interviewed.

Here’s what she said:

"There's something Cezanne said that I think about a lot, something like, 'I know what I am looking at, but what am I seeing?' That's what reviewing feels like to me. It's very much to 're-view,' to see again, to try to see farther and see deeper."

Sehgal was speaking there as a book reviewer, but what she said seems to me a habit for living as an attentive person, regardless of occupation: to try to see and not just look, to try to see farther, to try to see deeper.

“Far from my high school daydreams about the future, I am on a search for daily meaning as well as for daily bread, for living rather than dying. I want to cast my net on the side of astonishment.... I want to find God at work in me and through me. I want livelihood.

Livelihood: the word gathers up and bundles together the simultaneous longings for meaning, satisfaction, and provision. In the fullest sense of the word, livelihood means the way of one’s life; it means the sustenance to make that way possible; it means both body and soul are fully alive thanks to what has been earned or received by grace. On one level we make our livelihood; on another level we keep our eyes open and find it.”

–Nancy J. Nordenson, Finding Livelihood: A Progress of Work and Leisure (Kalos Press)

By day I'm a medical writer. After hours I do another kind of work. Creative writing, spiritual writing, essaying. This blog arises from those after hours. I write about work/vocation, meaning, hope, imagination, faith, science, creativity/writing, books, and anything else I feel the impulse to write about. I hope these short posts provide camaraderie for your own creative and spiritual life.